BATON ROUGE, La. (TheBlaze/AP) — A search warrant for surveillance video from the store where a black Louisiana man was killed by white police officers a week ago says that officers saw “the butt of a gun” in Alton Sterling’s pocket during the arrest and that he tried “to reach for the gun from his pocket.”

The Justice Department has opened a federal civil rights investigation of Sterling’s death in Baton Rouge.

In this Tuesday, July 5, 2016 photo made from video, Alton Sterling is held by two Baton Rouge police officers, with one holding a hand gun, outside a convenience store in Baton Rouge, La. Moments later, one of the officers shot and killed Sterling, a black man who had been selling CDs outside the store, while he was on the ground. (Arthur Reed via AP)

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry said in a statement that he won’t have access to the federal investigation on the shooting until it’s completed and a decision has been made on potential federal charges.

Moore, the local district attorney, said the Justice Department would rather not have “parallel investigations.”

“It’s better that DOJ do their work. They’re completely independent, from nowhere around here,” he said.

Moore also said he’s recusing himself from any state criminal investigation into the shooting death of Sterling. He cited his professional relationship with the parents of one of the officers involved in the shooting, Blane Salamoni.

Sterling’s funeral will be held Friday in Baton Rouge. Services will be at the Southern University F.G. Clark Activity Center. A viewing is scheduled from 8 a.m. to 10:30 a.m., with the service to follow at 11 a.m.

On Monday, convenience store owner Abdullah Muflahi filed a lawsuit against Baton Rouge police alleging that he was illegally detained after he recorded the confrontation between police and Sterling on his cellphone. The suit says he was kept in the back of a police vehicle for four hours and detained at the Louisiana State Police headquarters for two hours while he was questioned.

After nearly a week of protests, Baton Rouge police are taking criticism for their methods of dealing with demonstrators.

A protester is grabbed by police officers in riot gear after she refused to leave the motor way in front of the the Baton Rouge Police Department Headquarters in Baton Rouge, La. Police made nearly 200 arrests in Louisiana’s capital city during weekend protests around the country in which people angry over police killings of young black men sought to block some major interstates. (AP Photo/Max Becherer)

Nearly 200 were arrested over the weekend, and the district attorney said Monday that any decisions on charges against the protesters will be made on a case-by-case basis.

Protests have spread across the country as people express outrage over the recent deaths of two black men at the hands of police in Louisiana and in Minnesota.

“We’re going to do as good job as we can, as quickly as we can, to try to go through the (police) reports as they come in,” East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar C. Moore III said.

Moore suggested that “first offenders” and people who may have just “stepped over a line” could have their cases resolved more quickly than those of protesters accused of carrying guns or injuring officers.

But with tensions rising since last week’s killings of Sterling in Baton Rouge and Philando Castile in Minnesota by white officers, and an attack on police by a black sniper in Dallas that killed five officers, many have questioned whether the police response has been appropriate.

But during a speech in Dallas on Tuesday, President Barack Obama defended the “overwhelming majority” of police, saying they are “deserving of our respect and not our scorn.”

Kristy Carter said she’s been protesting every night since Sterling was killed. She said that officers outside the police station said they don’t have a problem as long as protesters don’t cross barricades or stop traffic – but that in practice it’s different.

“They are telling us not to be violent, but they are being violent against us,” Carter said of police.

Jade Flint said police seemed to be getting more agitated as the Saturday evening protests went on.

“The job is to protect us while we are out here trying to protest for our rights. Not to agitate us and pick and grab people,” she said.

Kira Marrero, a 22-year-old New Orleans resident who graduated last year from Williams College in Massachusetts, was the first protester freed from Baton Rouge’s jail on Sunday. She accused police of acting in an “inflammatory” manner and said an officer had pointed a rifle at her and other protesters before her arrest.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana said Monday that Baton Rouge police “used violent, militarized tactics on groups of people who have gathered peacefully in protest of Alton Sterling’s killing.”

On Sunday, Amnesty International questioned the high number of arrests during Saturday’s protests and whether it was a “proportionate response to peaceful protests.”

Louisiana authorities have said repeatedly that they have no problem with protesters and pointed out the number of rallies that have been coordinated with authorities and have gone off without problems.

In the first few days after Sterling’s death, police took a more reserved approach to enforcement, keeping a low profile as hundreds of people gathered outside the convenience store where Sterling died.

Baton Rouge Police Chief Carl Dabadie Jr. said Friday that his department was striving to avoid a “military-style response” to the protests.

By Friday, tensions ratcheted up. Police have arrested 200 demonstrators over a three-day period and taken to the streets in riot gear, carrying rifles and driving armored vehicles.

Gov. John Bel Edwards said Sunday he’s “very proud” of how Louisiana’s law enforcement agencies responded to the protests and that he doesn’t believe police officers have been overly aggressive.

A Baton Rouge police spokesman said Monday that the arrests stemmed largely from people not complying with officers’ commands.

During a confrontation Sunday evening near an interstate ramp, a police officer in an armored vehicle had warned protesters over a loudspeaker that they would be arrested if they didn’t leave the area. Within minutes, officers in riot gear began making dozens of arrests.

“They had several opportunities to get out of the road, to disperse. They were ignored,” said Baton Rouge Police Sgt. Don Coppola.

Asked why some officers are armed with high-powered rifles at protests, Coppola said, “You don’t really know what you’re walking into. You want to have every precautionary means that you may need … to disperse these crowds.”

Coppola said the department respects people’s right to protest peacefully, and that people from outside Baton Rouge are largely responsible for confrontations at protests.

Police have confiscated three rifles, three shotguns and two pistols during protests, Coppola said earlier in an email.

One officer was hit by a projectile and injured in the weekend protests, authorities said.

Keep these in mind as you contemplate the direction of the American government over the past 50 years and especially since the Obama election.

The Goals of Communism

(as read into the congressional record January 10, 1963, from "The Naked Communist" by Cleon Skousen)

1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.